North Africa and Angola have the cheapest fixed broadband prices on the continent, reports oAfrica.com, an analytic site that tracks Africa’s digital progress.
Following on an analysis of mobile broadband in Africa, oAfrica.com further studied data from the Google Policy by the Numbers International Broadband Pricing Study to come up with the finding.
The research project, conducted by Communications Chambers, went on to find price observations for nearly 1,500 global fixed broadband plans from 93 countries and nearly 2,200 mobile broadband plans from 106 countries.
Sudan, Egypt, Morocco and Angola were revealed to have the lowest cost of fixed broadband on the continent.
oAfrica analysed the raw data and filtered by African country to compare costs of fixed broadband plans available in 23 nations. The full data set is available on these Google Fusion Tables. Costs are listed in US Dollars and are current as of July 2012.
Cheapest listed plan cost for each country (all speeds):
Reflects the cheapest plan included in the dataset by country, regardless of data or other limitations. In general, no more than three operators per country were included in the data, so others may offer a slightly cheaper plan than listed here. Many nations offer no more than 128kbps download speeds, and these plans are targeted for businesses.
-Sudan, $6.90 (unknown speed)
-Egypt, $7.45 (256kbps)
-Angola, $8.42 (1Mbps)
-Morocco, $11.16 (4Mbps)
-Algeria, $13.43 (256kbps)
-Libya, $15.63 (512kbps)
-South Africa, $17.55 (384kbps)
-Tanzania, $18.96 (256kbps)
-Burkina Faso, $23.64 (128kbps)
-Niger, $28.37 (128kbps)
-Zimbabwe, $30.00 (256kbps)
-Cote d’Ivoire, $31.26 (128kbps)
-Senegal, $34.05 (512kbps)
-Kenya, $34.99 (256kbps)
-Cameroon, $36.88 (192kbps)
-Uganda, $39.92 (256kbps)
-Mali, $41.61 (512kbps)
-Benin, $47.29 (512kbps)
-Madagascar, $51.09 (512kbps)
-Zambia, $56.23 (1Mbps)
-Sierra Leone, $70.00 (128kbps)
-Ghana, $85.32 (128kbps)
-Burundi, $100.00 (128kbps)
Calculated cost per Mbps for cheapest available fixed plan (by country):
To get an idea of how plans compare across countries, we calculated the cost per data for the cheapest plan in the dataset of each country.
The comparison is far from perfect (we could also have compared the highest available bandwidth plans), but it gives a sense of where fixed broadband costs are the highest – generally West Africa (excluding Senegal) and Central Africa.
Costs in Ghana seem high considering the relatively cheaper mobile plans. On further analysis, fixed broadband in Burundi and in Sierra Leone is extraordinarily expensive.
Cheapest possible plan (by operator):
North Africa and Angola have the lowest costs, hands down.
-$6.90, Sudan (Sudanet 2GB usage cap)
-$7.45, Egypt (LINKdotNET 256kbps)
-$8.42, Angola (MoviNet 1Mbps 50MB usage cap)
-$8.95, Angola (Nexus 1Mbps 300MB usage cap)
-$10.76, Egypt (Etisalat 512kbps 4GB usage cap)
-$11.16, Morocco (Menara 4Mbps)
1 Mbps (excluding North Africa + Angola):
Monthly rates for North African countries and Angola go for $15-$35. Elsewhere, high speeds are more expensive. Of course, these are advertised speeds – a number are marketed as “up to 1Mbps”. Note how Ringo offers speeds of up to 1Mbps for 1/10th the cost of MTN. Pricing in Senegal, Zambia, Tanzania, Madagascar, and Kenya is very similar ($50-$70).
-$42.52, South Africa (Axxess DSL)
-$47.29, Cameroon (Ringo)
-$47.29, Senegal (Sonatel)
-$56.23, Zambia (Zamtel)
-$63.21, Tanzania (TTCL)
-$69.84, Madagascar (Blueline)
-$70.01, Kenya (AccessKenya)
-$110.00, Zimbabwe (TelOne)
-$151.31, Benin (Kanakoo)
-$152.07, Burkina Faso (Onatel)
-$157.74, Cote d’Ivoire (Africa Online)
-$255.34, Niger (Sonitel)
-$304.75, Ghana (ClickMAX)
-$491.77, Cameroon (MTN)
